Blame Game
by MDesireeM
Summary: I don't blame you or your brother for what happened, he must have had a reason why. (Originally a oneshot, now a multichap fic!)
1. The Explosion

**A:N so got this idea working today at my new job (selling cookies)…I know the things that go through my head at work are well…weird. Anyway!**

**Read, review, reread? Lol let me know if I should continue it or just keep it a one shot! Thnx**

**Disclaimer: don't own Naruto, just the plot. **

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><p><strong>Blame Game<strong>

Beep, Beep, Beep.

The annoying sound kept repeating itself. _Would someone please turn off that damn alarm? _I waited for a few minutes and finally realized it wasn't an alarm. I listened carefully to my surroundings, footsteps and people talking about a shooting, more people asking when someone will wake up, a page on the intercom for a doctor to the E.R. wait an ER? I'm in a hospital? Why am I in a hospital? I slowly open my eyes and gradually feel the white cotton sheets underneath me and over me. I feel a small sting in both of my shoulders as I take inventory of my body. I try to sit up and a searing pain from my abdomen stops me from trying. "You shouldn't move that much. Try raising the bed or do you want me to do that?" I turn my head to the voice. A boy with midnight black hair that spikes in the back, with matching eyes stands against the wall of my area. I nod, not trusting my voice. He sighs and presses a button till the top of my bed is high enough to sit up somewhat without feeling that searing pain. After I get comfortable, I look around and see that I have a whole room to myself. On my right is a row of windows looking out at downtown Konoha. The lights of the mayor's tower, with the stars and moon tell me its something late in the night. I turn my gaze to the boy or uh teenager maybe, still leaning against the wall. He just continues to stare at me; I gaze at him trying to jog some sort of memory of him. When I come up with nothing, I begin to speak but he cuts me off. "Look I have other stuff to get to, so why don't you just tell me what happened. I'll apologize, you'll say you can never forgive me or my family and then we move on?" I blink several times at him. _What the hell kind of greeting is that?! This guy is the jerkiest jerk I've ever met! _

"Excuse me?!" I practically yell at him. _Who the hell does this guy think he is? _He blinks twice before sighing. He takes a chair from the wall and puts it closer to my bed. Close enough to where his arms can lean on the bed, which he does. He catches my gaze and holds it. I glare at him waiting for him to explain himself; my anger levels rising the longer he takes. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I am the younger brother of the guy who shot you and several others at the mall today." I just stare at him letting the words sink in. As they do, memories of this early afternoon flash before my eyes. I lean my back against the bed as my mind remembers every detail. _Well that would explain my shoulders and my stomach. Wait, he said younger brother!_ I glance at the guy with me; they do look like each other. Same color hair, same piercing eyes, same facial structure, yea they are related. Mr. Uchiha's eyes began to glare at me the longer I stared at him. I smiled before replying, "I remember now. Thanks. My name is Sakura, Sakura Haruno." My smile fades as his glare intensifies. "Why are you here?" Again the Uchiha boy continues to glare this time outside the window. I wonder why he's glaring, how'd I piss him off? "To say sorry for my brother's action, though you're the only _real _victim I can apologize to." I turn my gaze to the window wondering what it is he is glaring at, _maybe his brother. _I inwardly nod to myself before replying, "You don't have to apologize to me or for your brother," a though passes my mind before continuing, "He apologized before shooting my left shoulder." I turned back to the Uchiha next to me as I head a gasp. He looked at me with eyes widen and his mouth a little agape, I tried really hard not to giggle at his expression. I would assume this guy has never been surprised or at least not a lot. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before looking down and taking a deep breath, I assume to calm him and get his thoughts together. After a while his eyes found me again, they were softer. Not glaring, not hating, mostly confused with tenderness in there. Almost like a little boy looking at someone he idolizes. "I don't get it. He apologized before shooting? Ha, sounds nothing like him. Then again, shooting random people isn't him either." Minutes passed before either one of us spoke. "What happened?" I turned my gaze to the windows. The colors of the lights slowly blurred as I let myself get lost in the memories of this afternoon; letting my voice carry the story to the younger brother of the man who shot me.

_ I was holding a tray, a rather heavy one, of a few batches of fresh-baked cookies on my way to the upstairs kiosk we had. Hopefully I wasn't gone too long, then again it's Wednesday, one of the slowest days of the week. I should be fine. I turned the corner to go up the stairs. I smiled to the employees of the shoe store located near the stairs. They always got cookies from me when they clocked out. I gazed back toward the stairs, no one was on them. Yay! I hate when people take forever on the stairs, it hurts my arms with this weight on them. As I noticed the stairs I saw someone with long black hair in a ponytail start walking on them and stop on the first level of stairs. He turned toward me. I caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were really black, like raven colored black. Whoa, nice eyes guy. I smiled at him, I don't know if he caught it or not but still. I was then that I felt a stinging pain in my abdomen. My footsteps faltered and I stopped walking. All I could concentrate was the pain in my stomach. Why did it hurt so much? My eyes caught sight of someone falling to the ground, a scream followed. Who was screaming? Why did that guy fall? Another man fell a few feet away from that man. More screaming and now people started to panic. What's going on? The pain in my stomach started to increase as I tried to take a few steps. A new pain in my right shoulder takes my attention away from everything else. What the hell?! I know these cookies are heavy but they shouldn't hurt that much! I glance at my left shoulder to see a dark color soaking up my red uniform shirt. What's that? It's kind of cold and warm. It really hurts, bad. I glance back up and see many more people in front of me on the floor with red liquid forming a puddle from behind them. Security is running over to the men and yelling over walkie talkies. Whoa, must be serious. An older looking security guard looks around. What's he searching for? "Gomen" I glance at the voice besides me, it's the guy from the stairs I was staring at. How'd he get here? Up close, I can see his eyes are black with a tint of red around the pupil, contacts? I blink at him, "Nani?" Another searing pain, this time from my left shoulder, causes me to drop the cookie tray I had been holding. I vaguely feel something getting slipped into my pocket as my line of vision starts to darken around me. Before I completely surrender to the dark, I hear screaming and guns going off. Was I shot?_

When I come out of my memories, tears are streaming down my face. I didn't realize it then, but his eyes – they look so sad, sad and sorry. Almost like he didn't want to shoot someone, I wonder why. "What makes you think he apologized to you?" I glance at the boy next to me. His eyes were covered with his hair. He's hiding. I see his hands on my bed in fist, I reach over and hold one of his hands in my hand. His eyes flash up at the contact, ignoring the pain from my shoulder, I hold his gaze. "He said 'gomen', I know in Japanese it means a form of sorry or forgive me. Besides his eyes were so regretful looking; almost like he didn't want to shoot someone or something." The Uchiha's eyes darkened as his fist tightened. I just held his hand, I don't know what he was going through but it must be horrible. Having your own flesh and blood commit a crime like this, it's gotta be tough for him. His words from earlier ring in my head, _"I'll apologize, you'll say you can never forgive me or my family…" has no one forgiven or accepted his apology? _My thoughts of the world were already negative but looking at the guy in front of me with the idea that many of the victims' families rejected his apology made me almost give up on humanity. I'm assuming from the way he said "_only real victim"_ that I'm the only one that survived. With that thought I close my eyes and say a small prayer for the fallen people who died today. I also said a small prayer for the man, Mr. Uchiha, who shot many people today. Praying that he would be safe, and that whatever demons he has, he wouldn't have to face alone. And one last prayer for the younger Uchiha besides her, who would travel through many challenges and would receive much hate from the world for a while. _Grant him the strength to overcome this, and please have someone to travel these dark times with him. _I lightly say amen and open my eyes to find him glaring at me. "Why are you praying for me and my brother?" I blink, I wasn't aware I was saying that out loud. Damn, oh well.

"Because I can and want to. That and I believe what I said. You both need someone with you to help you face the next upcoming events that are bound to take place." I breathe and wipe the tears with my hand that wasn't holding Mr. Uchiha's and smile before completely giving him my attention. "I don't blame you or your brother or your family. Your brother, I believe didn't want to kill people, has his reasons for doing what he did. Your family and you are nowhere to blame for that." I squeeze his fist waiting for his reply. His gaze is on my eyes, I don't know what he is searching for but I let him see whatever he is looking for. While he is doing that I notice that his eyes are not completely black, like his brother there is a crimson color around his pupil. A knock at the door breaks the silence and he removes his hands before getting up and answering the door. Two men in suits give him a look before turning toward me, "Ms. Haruno. Glad to see you awake. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?" I shake my head, I knew this was coming. The other gentleman with white hair and thick glasses turns toward Mr. Uchiha and asks him to leave the room. Before he can reply though I answer for him, "Can you wait outside the room until they are finished? I'd still like to talk to you, if you don't mind that is." I didn't want him to leave until he understood that I don't blame him or his brother. He nodded before leaving. "Alright Ms. Haruno, I am Detective Orchimaru and this is my partner, Kabuto. We just have a few questions dealing with the shooting."

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><p>A pair of crimson stained eyes watched as the young man with black hair walked toward chairs located right outside of the pink hair girl's room. A slight smile, "Don't be foolish little brother."<p>

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><p><strong>AN: so What do you think? leave it a oneshot or make it a story? **

**~M:)**


	2. The Code

**A/N: Because more people than I figured decided to review and asked me to continue the story, I continued it! So a BIG thanks to the following people who reviewed! **

**Shimmer (Glad you love it!)**

**AmaneHikariUchiha (hell even I'm curious as to why! well I know a little and maybe after this chapter you will know a bit more!) **

**TeenageCrisis (I like your thinking)**

**Yonomi (Apparently since I wrote another chapter this is more lol)**

**Guest (whoever you are! I hope with this chapter is easier if not let me know!) **

**Akatsuki Sakura Uchiha (I haven't even realized that there wasn't that much crime and mystery till you mentioned it! And I'm not making a promised on ItaSaku…but we'll see how the story plays out)**

**Random (I hope you log in and let me know what you think! And yes Orochimaru and Kabuto…the dynamic duo)**

_Italics are thoughts_

~M:)

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><p>The dark haired boy walked with a purpose, his eyes training to find a sight of pink. Not the cherry blossom pink though. A pink paired with emerald. A manila file clutched in his left hand and two cups of tea in his right. Coffee wasn't something this pink and emerald took a liking to, so instead preferred tea, English Black Tea at that.<p>

As he continued to walk down the hallways of this maze of a school, his thoughts ran away from him. _What was she doing here anyway? Her mother had said she had failed multiple classes. Which lead her to lose her financial aid_. So then why was she here? He had went to her house looking for her earlier in the morning. Not because he missed her or her cheery personality. Not because she had 'forgiven' him and was the only person that would talk to him like a person and not a criminal. No he was looking for her because he found something. And he needed to understand what and how it was related to his brother. Her being the only witness that was willing to talk to him made her the only person he could talk to. Maybe,a slight part of him wanted to see her because he wanted to feel like a human, normal person again. As he stood at her front porch though her mother had said she was at school and was probably in the gym. Which led him to an hour of fighting traffic and another hour of looking for parking, mainly following a student to their car and taking their spot after they left. When he FINALLY reached the doors to the gym his gaze automatically caught sight of emerald paired with pink.

She held a basketball in her right hand running from the baseline to the opposite rim in the motion of a layup. He watched as the ball cleared the rim and went down inside of the net with a "swish". He smirked and walked through the door quietly and watched as the ball rolled over to him. He kicked the ball back over to the pink haired girl, who finally realized someone was there. "Oh, Uchiha-San. It's nice to see you again." She smiled as she walked over to him. As she was picking up the ball and balancing the ball between her arm, he looked more closely and he could still see bandages on her abdomen and shoulders under her top. Her pink tank top didn't hide them well. _She was still wounded and she was running basketball drills? How stupid is she?!_

After analyzing her, he nodded in greeting before offering a cup of hot tea. Her smile widened as she took a cup from him. She motioned for him to follow her to the bleachers where her backpack and gym bags were located. She sat down she sipped her tea, sighing, relaxing as she looked up at him from under her eyelashes. He smirked before turning to sit down next to her. He took a sip of his tea before speaking, "Sorry to intrude on you. I went to your house and your mother informed me you were here." The girl giggled as she began to dribble the ball in between her legs with her hand that wasn't holding her tea. Her arm tensed slightly every so often indicating she felt some kind of pain. "It's the only place I know of that has a gym, great places to dance, lots of computers, food, Starbucks, and places to draw." He raised an eyebrow. She came here for that? Okay so she was artistic but all of that? Dance and drawing? Sports and photography? He shook his head; well she is unique as her choice of hair color.

"I see. Well as much as I enjoy your optimistic and carefree view of the world, I am here actually on official and serious business. Mind if we go and talk somewhere more private?" Her emerald eyes furrowed and darkened.

"Like police? I already gave them my statement."

"I know, I read it. I'm actually working on the case as to why this all happened" he didn't tell her how he fought tooth and nail against his Commander Hatake, on why his team and him need to handle this case. He didn't mention how it was his loud blond partner's quick thinking that used his relationship, which was fairly new and barley forming, with the pink haired girl in front of him that got him and his team the case. Apparently this Haruno Sakura was a big deal to his mentor and boss. "So, you're not with internal affairs?" He raised his head and frowned. Did she have a bad experience with internal affairs? "That guy with the long black hair gives me the creeps". _Ah, Orochimaru has that effect on people._  
>"Aa"<p>

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><p>Both young adults, sat down in a soundproof study room in the library. After closing the blinds the place was almost felt like an interrogation room. Sakura had changed into jeans and a red T-shirt with black squares over it in some kind of design. She played with cup in her hand as she processed the information. "Why do you think I would understand these codes and random numbers, Uchiha?" The man in question took his time in replying. He leaned against the back of his chair, slightly slouching. His arms had crossed over his chest as his gaze never left the young lady in front of him. Observing all the tell-tale signs of her knowing exactly what all these numbers meant. The twitch of her fingers, the widen eyes, and the tensed posture; <em>oh she knows what these are.<em> His eyes hardened before replying, "Because Ms. Haruno, you seem to observe everything. And by the way I saw you react as I rattled off those numbers means you do know. So enlighten me."

Her eyes closed briefly before she walked over to the white board in the room. Her left hand holding her phone and her right holding a black dry erase marker. Her eyes opened as she wrote numbers, dates it seemed. Then she drew a line between each day separating them and wrote all of the numbers he rattled off under them. His eyebrows furrowed and he frowned deeper. So she matched some of the numbers to dates? Just as he was about to question or voice his curiosity, she grabbed a new color, blue, marker and threw her phone on the table he was sitting at and began to draw a map of the mall writing down where the gun shdots or where he was sure she thought they had taken place. After she drew the map, in another color, red, she would square off certain areas. In those areas she would write down the number correlating to a date. Uchiha Sasuke was confused. He still didn't understand what the numbers meant but now he knew that they were related to certain dates and places in the mall.

"It's a kind of like monoalphabetic substitution cipher but instead of using the alphabet they used other numbers. The other numbers here are relatively the same. It's only after the decimal is where the numbers change. These numbers with letters? I thought it was just the usual 'change numbers to letters' but it didn't make sense so I left the numbers the same and used the letters to make a word. One word; four letters: Mall. So I used the mall and referring to the numbers paired with letters sectioned off according to the square ft. the dates and other numbers correspond based on the decimal place value. My guess is that the numbers under the dates is an estimate of foot traffic in that one area on a certain date." Ms. Haruno took a deep breath before walking back to her chair with a frown on her face.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, he may have only understood the last part, cryptography was Nara's specialty, but he understood. So why was she frowning? She let her gaze leave her cup of tea in front of her and wandered to the drawing on the board. She glared before looking at the confused Uchiha. A small smile made its way on to her face as she saw his confused eyes and raised eyebrow, "I took a year and a half of Information Technology Security System and well there were a few classes primarily focusing on codes and hacking. I was top of the class for most of my time there." The smile faded as she spoke again, "that being said. Whoever developed this code is good and would have either the time or the technology to monitor the foot traffic of the mall. Seeing how security would be suspicious of someone monitoring the mall over an extended amount of time, I would bet that this someone had some sort of technology at their disposal. Maybe like a direct feed of the security cameras to their personal devices or something."

The Uchiha let out a sigh. _This doesn't look good at all._ He straightened in his chair and fixed the young lady in front of him with hardened eyes. The young girl seemed to sense the change of atmosphere and straightened as well. Sasuke took out more photos from the manila envelope. All codes and numbers written on papers, walls, and chalk boards, photo after photo were being placed on the table. Codes and numbers were covering the place in the photos; she couldn't even see the original wall anymore. Her eyes widened as she kept looking at the photos. It was a hell of a code. The Uchiha paused on letting one of the photos out. _Should I show her?_

A picture of light pink and emerald eyes filled the picture. A wall of hundreds of pictures of her, all doing different things. Walking home, at work, on break at Starbucks, they were following her. And the next words that the young Uchiha spoke broke her and turned her world upside down even more,

"These were found in the apartments of the people that my brother shot."

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><p><strong>AN: So There is Chapter 2! Well Again thank you for reading and let me know what you think! **

**~M:) **


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